Headlines:
WesCorp Installs Security System from IPLocks JPM Chase Offering ARC Conversion Tool Ill.'s First American Upgrading Software
WesCorp Installs Security System from IPLocks
Western Corporate Federal Credit Union of San Dimas, Calif., has completed its implementation and testing of IPLocks Inc.'s database security monitoring service to protect customer information, the vendor said Monday.
Adrian Lane, the San Jose software vendor's chief technology officer, said that the service is similar to the behavioral methods credit card companies use to detect stolen accounts.
"The beauty of this tool is being able to watch user behavior," he said. If an employee accesses and downloads confidential information not normally needed at work, or if an employee's account is being used to access information from an unusual location - indicating a compromised password - the software will automatically alert the company.
WesCorp used IPLocks' system to monitor 70 of its databases for six months this year, Mr. Lane said. For the following two months the credit union used IPLocks' recommendations to tighten the security of its computer systems.
For example, the service was able to detect if vendors contracted to upgrade systems were given too much access, and it helped WesCorp evaluate whether the access was used for malicious purposes, he said. "Whenever a network has been changed is usually where the security holes pop up."
WesCorp said that even though it did not detect any criminal activity being conducted by its vendors or employees, it was able to improve security to reduce the potential for such thefts.
Christofer Hoff, the $24 billion-asset credit union's chief information security officer, said in a press release that even though it already had various network security products in place, "the missing piece was a way to understand who or what is accessing the data itself."
JPM Chase Offering ARC Conversion Tool
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. has started offering an accounts receivable conversion product for billers that operate their own lockboxes.
The product, which JPMorgan Treasury Services introduced last week, provides corporate clients access to the unit's ARC eligibility database, ACH file creation, return item reconciliation and reporting, and other services used when companies convert paper checks to automated clearing house transactions.
Alan Koenigsberg, a vice president at JPMorgan Treasury Services and its global ACH senior product manager, said the target customers are large billers that receive about a million payments a month, such as utilities, oil companies, credit card issuers, and non-bank financial companies.
"It's not new technology. It is a pricing bundle for clients who, for one reason or another, see ARC as a hurdle," he said in an interview Thursday. "It brings all the fees under one umbrella."
Three corporate customers are already using the product, according to Mr. Koenigsberg, who would not name them.
The ARC format, which went into effect March 2002, is the fastest-growing payment type in the history of Nacha, the electronic payments association. The Herndon, Va., clearing house group said in July that it was expecting a billion ARC transactions this year, making the format the most commonly used payment method for replacing paper checks.
JPMorgan Chase developed its product with the help of US Dataworks Inc. of Houston and J&B Software Inc. of Blue Bell, Pa.
"As the process has matured, the products have standardized to some extent," Mr. Koenigsberg said. Electronic systems are revolutionizing payment processing, and such fee-based offerings could appeal to companies that are uncertain about investing in equipment, he said. "If they decide to outsource the rest of it, they're not losing anything."
Ill.'s First American Upgrading Software
Two years after licensing project-management software to track technology development tasks, First American Bank Corp. of Elk Grove Village, Ill., is expanding its use of the product.
Noel Levasseur, an executive vice president at the $2.1 billion-asset banking company, said it began using the Tracker Suite of software products from Automation Centre of Tucson in 2002 to keep tabs on information technology projects.
Though First American has a technology staff of about 30 programmers, "we have to pick our battles," so it uses a lot of software packages, Mr. Levasseur said in an interview this month. The programmers integrate those packages at First American's centralized data center, handling "a whole plethora of small, short duration projects" to support its 34 branches in the Chicago area.
First American uses Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino collaboration software from International Business Machines Corp., so executives sought project management tools that worked in that environment, he said.
"We couldn't find very many competitive products that worked in our collaborative process with Lotus Notes," he said. "We were concerned about implementation, and we were concerned about ongoing support."
First American currently uses Project Tracker, which prioritizes projects, keeps track of deadlines and programmers' hours, produces management reports, and provides a discussion database for developers, he said. It also tracks costs on projects involving both in-house and outside staff to monitor costs.
In addition, First American uses Support Tracker, a companion help-desk product that logs calls from users, produces automated notifications to troubleshooters, and provides a database for issues that come up repeatedly.
This fall First American plans to begin testing upgraded versions of the two products, Mr. Levasseur said.
